Islamophobia in Germany, East/West: an introduction

Abstract

In this Introduction to a Special Issue on Islamophobia East/West, we provide a general review of the topic. Despite similarities in Islamophobia between East and West Germany, significant contrasts persist. While scholars have understood them as residues of communist rule, here we argue for the importance of what followed its downfall. First, we sketch out the history of Islamophobia in post-reunification Germany. We suggest that the othering of easterners has shown close resonances with the othering of (particularly Muslim) migrants. Both are represented as in need of a reckoning with the German past (Vergangenheitsbewältigung), unlike westerners. Such contrasts, we argue, are reproduced across multiple and different scales, from the geography of Berlin to the national territory, the EU (with its persistent East/West divisions), and beyond it. The politics of gender, we insist, is vital for understanding German Islamophobia. Both feminists and conservatives have framed Muslims at once as sexual predators and as repressive patriarchs. Meanwhile, the emergence of ‘welcome culture’ (Wilkommenskultur) has created opportunities for solidarity yet has also come to reference liberal naïveté. We conclude that neither Islamophobia nor the East/West contrasts are likely to disappear while eastern populations remain peripheral to the contemporary economic and political orders.